Welcome to Wells Cinema

The small "Award Winning Cinema" ...with a BIG heart

Monday 25th Sep 7.00pm

The Levelling

An acclaimed directorial debut, this film has also won plaudits for the central performance of Ellie Kendrick, who is Clover, a student vet, who returns to the Somerset farm in the Levels on which she grew up, for the funeral of her brother. He was about to take over the farm from his father and there is doubt and uncertainty about the cause of his death. Clover is estranged from her angry father (Troughton) and returning to the farm is doubly difficult for her. This is a powerful story of flooded farms and fractured families. The truth about the brother’s death is at the core of this intriguing drama. “It may sound bleak, but there is such life and compassion in every frame that the tune turns into a song of love” Mark Kermode, The Observer.

1 hr 22 mins Contains scenes of strong language, sex references

Monday 9th Oct 7.00pm

Lady MacBeth

Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth was the inspiration for the 1865 Russian novel Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which itself has been adapted and transferred from Russia to the North East of England in the 19th Century. The story concerns Katherine (Pugh), a beautiful 17 year old woman who has been married off as part of a land deal to the much older Alexander (Hilton), the morose and inadequate son of the wealthy and controlling Boris, (Fairbank) a mine owner. It is he who rules the roost and insists on Katherine being a demure and submissive wife. With both men absent on business for long periods Katherine feels imprisoned in a stark and remote manor house. She is, however, a young woman of spirit and the inevitable occurs when she starts a passionate affair with the estate’s groomsman (Jarvis), a handsome man of mixed race. While there are some echoes of Lady Chatterley, the denouement is very different in this no holds barred Victorian melodrama – “a lusty, jawdroppingly bodice ripper” – Tim Robey, The Telegraph

Monday 23th Oct 2.30pm

The Red Turtle

This beautiful animated film, jointly made by Japan’s Studio Ghibli and European backers, with a Dutch/British director, is like a zen variation on Robinson Crusoe. A man is washed up on an archetypical desert island. Repeated attempts to sail away bring him into contact with a mysterious giant turtle, out of which a surprising relationship mysteriously develops. The story operates at the level of a universal myth, free of dialogue or specifics, subtly alluding to deeper matters.
Characters are often dwarfed in lush expanses of sea, sky or forest, and there’s a delight in small details; a greek chorus of scuttling crabs, the lapping of waves on the shore. A beautiful film for all ages - “a desert island film to bask in” – Steve Rose, The Guardian.

1 hr 19 mins Contains scenes of mild threat/p>

Monday 23th Oct 7.00pm

Dr Strangelove

Curiously topical in these uncertain times, this film was made at the height of the cold war when anxiety and fear about the end of life as we know it was prevalent, tackling this through the lens of satire and surreal comedy. Briefly, the mad saga revolves around a psychotic out of control American Strategic Air Command Officer, General Jack D Ripper (Hayden) who lets loose his armed B52 bomber command squadron on the Soviet Union because of his paranoid belief that the Soviets are “tapping and contaminating all our precious bodily fluids” as part of their plan for world domination. Ripper is unaware that his attack will trigger the Soviets’ ultimate retaliatory weapon, the Doomsday Machine, which will blow up the entire planet.. The three men who might avert this tragedy are all played by Peter Sellers - British RAF officer Mandrake, the only man with direct access to the demented Ripper; the ineffective President of the USA, MerkinMuffley; and the former Nazi scientific genius Dr Strangelove…..
“The genius of Dr Strangelove is that it’s possible to laugh – and laugh hard – while still recognizing the intelligence and insight behind the humour” – James Berardinelli, Reelviews.

Monday 13th Nov 7.00pm

The Sense of an Ending

Based on the 2011 Booker-winning novel by Julian Barnes, this is a story about memory – how far can we rely on it? Tony Webster (Broadbent) is a grumpy niche shopkeeper, long divorced from his QC wife (Walter), but on good terms with their daughter Susie (Dockerty), who is pregnant and about to become a single mother. Tony’s life changes when he learns he has been left something in the will of the mother of his first girlfriend Veronica (Rampling). This turns out to be the diary of his best friend Adrian (Alwyn), who committed suicide when they were at university and who had been in a love triangle with Veronica. It seems the past has caught up with Tony. He meets up with Veronica, who he has not seen for many years, and is forced to confront his past. As Tony himself says “what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed”. “What begins as a nostalgic and humdrum family drama grows more and more compelling the darker it becomes”. – Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent.

1 hr 46 mins Contains scenes of suicide references

Monday 27th Nov 7.00pm

The Eagle Huntress

In the remote Mongolian landscape, the nomadic Kazakh people have for generations perfected fox hunting, using trained eagles. It was traditionally an exclusively male sport, but Aisholpan, the 13 year old daughter of a much-garlanded eagle hunter, calmly decides to change all that. Set against the breath-taking expanse of the Mongolian steppe, the Eagle Huntress features some of the most awe-inspiring cinematography ever captured in a documentary, giving this intimate tale of a young girl’s quest the dramatic force of an epic narrative film.
“A joyful, majestic film” – HomaKhaleeli, The Observer.

1 hr 27 mins Contains scenes of hunting with eagles

Monday 11th Dec 7.00pm

Denial

In 1993 American academic Deborah Lipstadt dubbed British historian David Irving “one of the most dangerous spokespersons for Holocaust denial”. Irving was well known for his outspoken pronouncements, which included declaring that there had never been gas chambers at Auschwitz. Lipstadt was stunned, then, when he sued her for libel. Their landmark battle is the subject of this compelling courtroom drama scripted by David Hare. His screenplay stays true to the actual events; the dialogue from the courtroom scenes was taken verbatim from the court records. There are strong performances from Rachel Weisz as Lipstadt, Timothy Spall as Irving, Tom Wilkinson as QC Richard Rampton and Alex Jennings as the Judge, Sir Charles Gray. “This film, telling its story with punchy commitment and force, was a breath of fresh air”. Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian.

1 hr 47 mins Contains scenes of infrequent strong and racist language

Monday 18th Dec 7.00pm

A Quiet Passion

This is the story of the American poet Emily Dickinson, from her early days as a young schoolgirl to her later years as a reclusive unrecognized artist. Growing up unmarried in the bosom of her loving family in Amherst, Mass, Emily (Nixon, an outstanding performance) has the sharp wit and searching mind of a woman out of step with the codes and formalities of her time. Her story is beautifully told by Director Terence Davies, with fine supporting performances by Ehle (Emily’s sister Vinnie), Carradine (her lawyer father Edward) and her brother Austin (Duff). “A Quiet Passion is one of those rare movies about a writer that conveys the sense that the character, as depicted, is capable of artistic creation at a world-historic height of achievement”. Richard Brody, The New Yorker.

2 hrs 02 mins Contains scenes of upsetting scenes of illness

Tickets

Can be purchased Online, at APHS immediately before
a screening (cash/cheque only), and at the Tourist
Information Centre, in person or via the Booking Number.